My handbrake "on" light was showing on my dash yesterday even when my handbrake was fully off. I got frustrated and bent the small copper strip away/upwards from the top of the handbrake popping the top rivet that holds it on in the process! Now my handbrake light isnt registering at all...

Interesting story, you broke something, you know what to fix. I see a question mark but no question.

The copper strip is pushed up when the handbrake is off, disconnecting it from the chassis and breaking the circuit. The studs are plastic and I guess its insulated under the copper strip.

The problem is ussualy not the actual handbrake lever and the copper strip but with my cars it has time and time again been the auto adjust mechanism and the lever coming from the cable into the drum.
The rivet that forms the hinge tends to start seizing after all these years and will pull the handbrake lever up.......and your light comes on.

volvomania wrote:The problem is ussualy not the actual handbrake lever and the copper strip but with my cars it has time and time again been the auto adjust mechanism and the lever coming from the cable into the drum.
The rivet that forms the hinge tends to start seizing after all these years and will pull the handbrake lever up.......and your light comes on.

Tell me about it, I had the same problem in January of this year; The handbrake hinge mechanisms inside both of my brake drums were seized solid and took some incredible pressure and gallons of WD40 to free. It's definately not them in this case as the handbrake is holding fine...

I was lucky enough to find an entire handbrake lever-mechanism at a local scrappy yesterday which I've now swapped over for the old one. My handbrake and handbrake light now work as they should; I did notice though that on the rear-end of the rubber-sheath that covers the handbrakes lever that there's a small rubber block. Im guessing that this should lock into place on the underside of the plastic housing that sits between the two front seats? It's possible that with my original handbrake lever that it wasnt connected thus putting weight on the top of the copper strip pushing it down so that when the handbrake lever was fully depressed the "on" light was still being activated?...

Doubt it, in the off position the strip is forced up. Its not so much the stip moves up, its more it is stopped before the handbrake lever reaches the off position.

It must have been shorted, or the handbrake was not going all the way down.

Having another look at my dissassembled car I can see the lifter part is actually part of the ratched gear (fixed big metal part). This pushes at an insulated strip underneath the copper strip and raises it. This also insulates from the metal that the strip sits on. If the insulation had broken off from under the strip (under the open part) you would get that symptom. A couple of layers of sellotape would have fixed it (temporarily anyway).

Thanks Ride-On. Thinking about it, when I removed the original handbrake assembly I noticed that one of the bolts that holds it on to the cars chassis was quite loose (this may have been the cause?). I replaced it anyway with the new/scrappy assembly which is working fine.

I guess I shouldnt have lost my temper with the original one as it was probably fixable before I yanked the copper strip right up busting one of its rivets...